The Brave Little Toaster Server

In one of his earlier articles, the author had said that the days are not far off when there will be owner-friendly products in homes and offices. These are the Internet appliances of the future, made possible by the embedded technologies. Well, the days of owner-friendly Internet appliances are already here! The channels must recognize the trends that would crystallize in the coming months and get ready to handle new products.

In my earlier article, "The Brave Little Toaster" (December 1-15, page 37), we had seen the two possible trends that were emerging. Building new Internet applications or making traditional embedded systems Internet-capable. At the heart of both are the new embedded Internet technologies. We had classified these products into two categories.

1. 1. Dedicated Internet appliances -- developed for the purpose of providing Internet access and web-based services, without the use of a desktop PC.
2. Internet-enabled embedded systems -- traditional embedded systems with added Internet connectivity.
   
   
   
   What is emerging now is a mixed trend. Two interesting and very promising products have been recently introduced in India. These products fall under the mix of both the above categories.

Accton's WildFire Internet appliance, which provides a number of features and ready to run services like 

• Browser base administration
• Web server - to set up your intranet site
• Mail server - to download and distribute your office e-mail coming in from different IDs.
• File server with cross-platform file sharing.
• Print server
• Internet proxy server - for your important employees to share one Internet connection over the LAN.
• Firewall - to filter incoming and outgoing Internet traffic 
• DHCP, DNS, NAT, VPN
• Compatibility with dial-up, ISDN, ADSL
• Compatibility with PCMICA, USB
• Wireless capability

It comes with a high-speed Cyrix media GXm processor with MMX, 6 GB enhanced IDE hard disk and 64 MB SODIMM RAM.

Another one is the server appliance from Sun - the Cobalt Qube 3

The Sun Cobalt Qube 3 is a complete Intranet and Internet server appliance integrated with Web-based applications and tools. Simple to install and easy to manage this server allows you to launch a web site, share documents across the network, process email, operate a firewall and enable web caching - all controlled through the Cobalt Qube browser-based administration facilities.

Ideal for small to medium-sized organizations, workgroups, branch offices and educational institutions, the Sun Cobalt Qube 3 server can also be deployed by service providers to establish a presence on a customer's network and to offer value-added services. It features:

• Browser-based administration
• Auto-configuration utility
• E-mail and Web-mail
• Web server
• Cross-platform file sharing
• NAT, DNS and DHCP server
• Development tools (CGI, PHP, Perl, Interbase, MySQL)
• Optional web caching 
• Optional SCSI port, internal PCI, dual Ethernet, USB and serial port

The Qube 3 comes with 300-450 MHz x86 CPU, 32-128 MB RAM, 10-20 GB hard drives (optional 2x20 GB HDD with RAID 1)

Powerful potential

Without even going into the technical jargon one can quickly notice the powerful application potential for these appliances for small and medium businesses.

The important points that you must note from the development of such products is that the legacy of desktop PC-based server applications is about to end. Servers will no longer be computers requiring server OS installations, applications installation and configuration and high level of technical administration. Servers of tomorrow will be just appliances, or Internet appliances. In fact, calling them servers will be like calling a toaster a toast server!

They will have a set of pre-configured services ready to switch on and go! All this with a minimum of configuration - through simple option selections. Light weight and small in size, they can be carried where ever you want, like a small 2-in-1, set it up quickly and utilize the services. Even a novice user can set up the network in 30 to 50 minutes.

There will be no need for certified network engineers to set up and maintain your small business network. These appliances will be ideal for even temporary network requirements like medical and other conferences, seminars, exhibitions etc. You can quickly set up a small LAN in almost no time with a few laptops.

The application possibilities I can visualize with such appliances are almost endless. Some of them are:

1. Small and medium office LAN
2. SOHO LAN at home
3. Small LAN in polyclinics, small hospitals or nursing homes, pathology labs etc.
4. All in one Internet service
5. Temporary LANs for press conferences, medical conferences, seminars, medical camps, training camps, exhibitions
6. Educational LANs in schools and colleges or training institutes
7. Networking point-of-sale terminals in shopping centers
8. All-in-one file server-print server-proxy server-mail server for service bureaus, design studios, and even in cyber cafes!
9. Intranet web server for small organizations.

Calling the channel

I have just given you a rough idea of what these new products can do for you. The entire specifications of these products could not be covered in the available space. That will be a subject for a product evaluation report.

I find these products ideally suited to implement the Internet strategies I have been stressing in these columns in earlier articles. Although no concrete recommendations can be possible at the moment, as I have not been able see these products in action so far at a client's site. When I am able to do that, I would certainly like to share more ideas with you for their applications in the SMB/SME segment.

If you have stared thinking that the manufacturers will now sell such products off the shelf directly to the end users, there is no need to worry so much about that. The channels will not be bypassed. There is a lot of value addition possible to retain your market share of server products. A small section of end users will certainly be able to put these products directly to use but majority will still need the involvement of channel partners and system integrators.

Ashok Dongre is an advertising and marketing professional, specializing in Internet/Intranet strategies and website design.